


By Your Side

by Koltarmi



Category: Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Poe Party Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 07:49:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9063040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Koltarmi/pseuds/Koltarmi
Summary: Death has followed Edgar every step of his life.He didn’t know know why he was foolish enough to believe it ever left him.Poe Party Secret Santa gift to lies on tumblr. Prompt: Edgar's truest friend.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I've fallen into the Poe Party fandom and I like it here, so I wrote a fic. This is my gift to lies on tumblr, who you should all check out, especially if you like Poe Party.
> 
> If you'd like to cry about Poebel, Wellenore, or this amazing web series, and any Shipwrecked stuff I'm koltarmi on tumblr.

Death has followed Edgar every step of his life.

He didn’t know know why he was foolish enough to believe it ever left him.

The warm water in the basin had long turned cold, but he kept scrubbing and submerging his pruned fingers back into the cold water. Despite them being spotless, he could still feel the slick of Eddie’s blood staining them.

After another half hour scratching at his skin, his hands were red and raw. He sat silently in the study, his eyes flickering from the floorboards to the empty chair across the study.

The thunderous pounding of the hidden heart could only be assuaged by glancing at the chair where Annabel’s cold lifeless body was laid on that terrible night.

Oh god, Annabel.

Sweet, kind, and innocent Annabel Lee.

_“It was always you.”_

His eyes wandered back to the floorboards as the echoing thumps drowned out all other thoughts.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Edgar?”

The room was much darker than he remembered it being. The only source of light was a single flickering candle that illuminated Lenore’s face.

She lit a few of the stray candles in the room. “I know that this whole brooding thing is like your aesthetic, but you’ve been holed up in this room for an entire eternity.”

Edgar’s hands were curled tightly in his lap. “It’s only been two weeks,” he murmured.

He knew she was rolling her eyes even though her back was turned to him. “I know you want to reclaim your social recluse status, but you’ve got to at least get out of the room. Like honestly, when was the last time you took a bath?”

“I’m fine.”

He looked up at the ghost, her arched eyebrows clearly conveying the message that she did not believe him at all. Lenore placed her candle on the mantle and crossed her arms.

“I know that your last social event wasn’t great,” she said. “Wait, no. That’s an understatement. It was a total disaster, but...”

He sighed as his hands fiddled with the buttons of his vest. “Was there a point you were trying to get at?”

Lenore crossed the room to stand in front of him. “Yes. This kind of gloom and doom aura,” she gestured at him with a perfectly manicured hand. “ It’s overkill and supes depressing.”

“Lenore, please. Just leave me alone.”

“I know you’re still upset about everything, especially Annabel, but you’ve got to get past it.”

Edgar looked at the empty paper and quill that sat abandoned on the table beside him. “Upset?” he scoffed. “The love of my life is dead and you think I’m just acting upset? Upset is how a child acts when they don’t get to play with their favourite toy.”

“Whoa,” she said, placing both hands against his shoulders. “That’s not what I meant.”

He brushed off her hands and got up from his chair.

“You never mean anything you say, after all, everything you say is just a joke! I am grieving, something you clearly don’t understand, so I’m sorry if I don’t play along with you,” he snapped.

The room fell silent.

Lenore’s voice was cold and even when she spoke. “You’re right. I know nothing about grief.”

He looked up at the ghost. Her lively eyes were dark and were filled with an anger he had never seen from her.

“It’s not like I died on my wedding day and came back to find out that my fiance killed himself. And it's not like I met someone who I think I could have really liked only for him to die in my arms a few hours later,” she crossed her arms and backed away from him. Her voice was laced with derision and venom. “I obviously don't understand what you're going through, so I’ll just leave you to this little pity party.”

She exited the study and the door slammed shut behind her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Everyone always looked at him strangely when he would recite a verse he had just come up with. They would be terrified when he told them a story that was grotesquely morbid. They would ignore him when he couldn’t find the right words to say and ended up stumbling over his run-on sentences.

So he kept to himself. It was easier that way for himself and everyone around him.

It was a miracle that Annabel had ever noticed him at all.

The day they met was was sunny and warm. He had run out of raven feed and the birds were becoming more irritated by the minute. Out of fear of being pecked to death, he had begrudgingly put on his overcoat and walked to the general store.

As usual, he kept his head down and his eyes on the ground in front of him.

On the narrow street that led to the town center, he bumped into somebody walking in front of him.

“Oh my, I’m terribly sorry,” the voice said.

He looked up and the woman he saw before him was beautiful and radiant. Her lips were painted red and matched her fiery hair that glinted in the sunlight. Her green eyes were a lush forest he would willingly lose himself in.

“Uh… I-” he had stuttered out. “Um-I. No, it was my fault, I wasn’t paying attention.”

Her smile was brilliant and as warm as the sun that shone down upon them. She extended her hand and said, “My name is Annabel Lee. I’ve just moved into town.”

He held her hand and gave her an awkward grin of his own.

She leaned towards him. “I do believe this is where you tell me your name,” she teased.

“Oh! Yes… Tha- That is- right. Edgar. Edgar Allan Poe.” He let go of her hand and nervously fixed the front of his coat. Despite his babbling, Annabel didn’t show any signs of discomfort being around him.

They walked alongside each other. Annabel talked about herself and her hometown — “A kingdom by the sea,” she had described it. Edgar listened attentively, adding a few words every few sentences or so. When he said he was a writer, she asked if she could read his work sometime. 

The short walk felt like an eternity that Edgar would forever treasure.

They reached the town center together and took a step away from each other, the bustling sidewalk was a dramatic shift from the narrow path they had just been walking on.

“Well, I have to get going, but it was lovely meeting you, Mr. Poe,” she said, the smile returning to her lips. “I do hope we meet again.”

A burst of warmth spread throughout his chest as he said, “As do I.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He could never say no to Annabel.

Which was why he found himself face to face with a ghost who was checking her nails.

“Sooooooo…” the ghost said. “Where can a lady ghost go in this town for some fun?”

Edgar shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Alright then.” Lenore pursed her lips and muttered the word ‘buzzkill’ under her breath. “Well, I’m just going to get settled in my new crib.”

She floated past him and headed towards the attic.

Edgar wondered if having a ghost as a roommate was a good idea.

He would continue to have that thought for many years to come

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

After another session of scrubbing his hands, Edgar walked into his study and found Lenore standing by the far bookshelf. Her hands were delicately tracing the spine of a book.

 _The War of the Worlds_ , it read.

“Lenore.”

The ghost jumped back. The soft and vulnerable expression quickly hardened and was replaced by her usual snark. “I’m just here to get a book and I’ll be out of your space in a sec,” she said, her eyes wandering across the towering bookshelves.

Edgar sighed. “No, Lenore. I-I want to apologize to you.”

She paused, curious where their conversation would lead before she turned to face him. “I’m listening.”

“I shouldn’t have said what I said. Of course, you, of all people, would know what grief feels like. I mean with your situation- not your situation, but your state of living? Is that the right term? What with Guy, an- and H.G.- or is it H? Just Wells? And of course, Annabel was your best friend, of course you would miss her too and-”

The beginning of a grin pierced through the ghost’s natural state of smugness. “Do you maybe want to catch a breath there and maybe get to the point?”

“Ah, yes. What I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry,” he said. “I was angry, upset, and I lashed out. “

Lenore stepped forward and placed her hand on the author’s arm. “Thank you,” she said. “I forgive you. What I said earlier… I didn’t mean you should move on and just forget about her. I just don’t think Annabel would have wanted you to spend the rest of your life angsting over her death.”

The constant thumping of the heart underneath the floorboards snuck its way into Edgar’s head. “I-it’s not just Annabel… There’s something else…”

Lenore was confused as Edgar kneeled on the floor and began to pry at the floorboards.

“What are you-” The planks of wood creaked as they were shifted. Lenore gathered the skirt of her dress and peered into the hole. “Is that-”

He nodded. “Eddie. I hit him too hard. I didn’t want to.. I didn’t mean to-” Lenore glanced at Edgar’s white-knuckled hands. “I keep hearing it. H-his heart. It still beats. I don’t know how, but I can’t stop-”

The ghost took his hands away from the floorboards. “I’ll take care of it.”

He looked up at her. Lenore’s face was grim, but her eyes held a fierce determination.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The next day, the space beneath the floorboards was empty.

“What did you do?”

Lenore gave him a pointed look. “You don’t actually want to know, do you?”

He paused for a moment. “No, I don’t.”

And that was the last they ever spoke about it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It had been a full three months since the night of the awful dinner party.

Edgar held a quill in his hand while Lenore sat in the plush armchair and read _The Island of Doctor Moreau_.

He placed the quill aside and placed his folded hands in his lap. “What’s it like? Being a ghost?”

Lenore looked up from her book. “We’ve been roommates for how long and you finally decide to ask me that now?”

She noted the genuine curiosity in his face, sighed heavily, and closed her book. “When I first died, I forget that I wasn’t real sometimes. I’d go to grab something, but my hand would phase right through it. It has gotten better, I can go corporeal without really having to think about it.

“But it’s also a bit lonely,” she admitted. “I’ll be haunting a place and think, ‘Is this it? Will I just spend the rest of my afterlife doing these totes boring haunts?’ I know there are other ghosts, but they’re all so far way. I just wish there-”

Lenore paused. She jumped out of her chair with an excited grin. “I have an idea.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Krishanti had left a carpet bag full of charms, books, and knick-knacks when she had visited the house.

With some translation of old Latin and a bucket of supplies, the study was prepared for a ceremony that would bring back the spirits of the dead to the living world.

Edgar’s fingers drummed against the wooden table they had set up as Lenore lit some incense and placed it around the room.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” he said, hesitantly.

Lenore blew out a candle. “You are not backing out of this now, Poe. We had to pre-order those goat eyeballs two weeks in advance and I’m sure as hell not letting them go to waste.”

“What if she’s already moved on to the other side?” Edgar asked. “And by bringing her back, we damn her to the living world as a spirit forever?”

She took the seat across from him and placed her hands in his. “Trust me. Annabel wasn’t finished with her business here in this—what did you call it—this mortal plane.”

They took turns chanting the words they found in the spellbook. As Edgar said the final words, Lenore blew out the candle.

Nothing.

“I don’t get it,” she said. “It should have worked…”

A sudden gust of wind surprised both of them as a human figure began to form.

Louisa May Alcott in her offending orange dress stood beside them. She tried to balance herself, but her hand phased right through the table. “Well, that was certainly more disorienting than I thought it’d be.”

“It worked.” Edgar said as he clutched onto one of Lenore’s hands. “But what about the rest?”

Lenore used her free hand to flip through the spellbook. “Only good for one ghost revival at a time,” she read from the book. She groaned and closed the heavy tome. “Ugh. I’ll go and order more goat eyeballs.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Eliot. Dostoyevsky. Shelley. Christie. Dickinson.

One by one, the dead authors arrived. Even the officers, Jim and Jimmy, came back.

On the ninth try, the gust of wind brought back Annabel Lee.

When she saw Edgar, she rushed towards him for a hug, but she had passed through him, leaving him feeling a bit chilly. With some work, Lenore was able to teach the new ghosts some tricks and tips about going corporeal.

At the end of their tenth ceremony, there was no gust of wind. The room was empty except for Edgar, Lenore, and Annabel.

“Why didn’t it work?” Annabel asked.

“I don’t know,” he replied. He saw the disappointment cloud Lenore’s eyes. “We have a few more supplies. We can try again.”

Lenore shook her head. “No, Edgar. If he didn’t come back, then there was a reason behind it.”

“Are you-” he asked.

“I’ll be fine,” she replied. “Just give me some time.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

A few days later, he was in the kitchen when he smelt smoke coming from the study. Rushing up the stairs, he had expected to see something on fire.

Instead, he found Lenore staring at H.G. Wells as Annabel looked upon them with amusement. The three had wide smiles on their faces.

“You’re back?” Edgar asked. “How?”

The inventor finally noticed the newest arrival in the study. “I’m not quite sure myself. After I died, I found myself lost in the tangle that was and is time and space, but then I felt something pulling me and I ended up here.”

Lenore took H.G.’s hands in hers. “Took you long enough.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Edgar, come quickly! The sunset is absolutely splendid,” Annabel exclaimed, rushing ahead of the group towards the clearing in the forest.

“Oh, Ms. Lee, allow me to take some readings as you watch,” H.G. said, running to catching up to her. “I have a hypothesis that the Sun’s position may trigger some sort of neural effect that makes us appear frightening to most humans.”

Edgar and Lenore lagged behind as their companions talked with bubbling enthusiasm.

Edgar watched as Annabel’s hair glinted in the sunlight like it had many moons ago when they had first met. “Thank you, Lenore,” he said. “For everything. For bringing her back.”

Lenore looked at H.G. His goggles had slid off his head and hung around his neck.

She then looked at Edgar, a smile gracing her face. “What are friends for?”


End file.
